


Five Times Ward Almost Regretted Always Telling Skye the Truth and One Time He Absolutely Didn't

by EllieCarina



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, skyeward - Fandom
Genre: 5 + 1, F/M, Gen, Humor, Love, Romance, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 02:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3751327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieCarina/pseuds/EllieCarina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ward has sworn to always tell Skye the truth. With various outcomes. Starts off in canon and goes on to be speculative. From little angsty to shameless fluff and banter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Ward Almost Regretted Always Telling Skye the Truth and One Time He Absolutely Didn't

**Author's Note:**

> My first 5+1 story..unbeta'd and not thoroughly edited but I wanted to have it out. Comments and kudos make my heart sing, so do it if you liked and are awesome <3

1

 

The first time was only a short while after he'd first made her the promise. He'd been through hell in near complete isolation for six months and had fallen apart and put himself back together all by himself and then, finally she had come to see him in his tiny cell. The worst part of it was that there were no bars or glass or any visible boundary there and that almost always, it looked like he could just walk out of the room and see her but he couldn't and she never came.

 

So when she finally did, he told her what he'd been meaning to say for months. That he was not asking for forgiveness, that he was going to do everything to help her and that, as long as he lived, he would always tell her the truth. She had walked out, cutting him off before he'd even finished.

 

When he first found his promise might come to bite him in the ass, he'd been visited by Skye for one of her “cold” interrogations, a while after she'd started seeing him regularly for intel. She always played bad cop with him. She cut him off, was mean and vicious and kept her walls as high as she could. It was almost adorable. Because no matter how hard she tried to hide it, he knew she was affected. Skye was as pure and raw as they come and pretend as she may, she would never be this cold-blooded, hard-hearted image she wanted to portray.

 

He supposed it made sense. She emulated May, who had begun to train her, so obvious in her stance and speech patterns, and him too, to a certain extent. It was what she needed to do to get through it. A part of him wished she didn't feel like she had to. Most of him wanted her to be just Skye, the way she was before. Even so, no matter which armoured version of her he got, seeing her was the best part of any given day. The only part frankly, that made him want to stay alive.

 

Back then, she came to him after a case, striding toward him with careful plastered loathing all over her face. When she stood before him, she snickered.

“Relieved it's not Fitz?” She asked him, referring to the fact that Fitz had earlier in the day used the control pad of his cell to kind of nearly kill him.

“Happy it's you,” he said sincerely, “that you're okay.”

She never knew what to do with this. Whenever he told her something edging on how he felt about her, her eyes went wild with thoughts and her lips stayed sealed. She pushed them together, adamantly not speaking, so he went on.

“I'm..uh..glad I could help,” he said and went to sit on his bed, letting the 'glad I'm alive to see how' hang in the air between them. Skye didn't engage.

“You said Hydra had a way of convincing people,” she said, eyeing him disapprovingly, “you were talking about brainwashing, weren't you?”

He nodded, “It's not done often, but it's done. It's a lot of work and some people aren't susceptible. It's mostly used on high value targets.”

“Like you?” She asked tight-lipped, like she didn't care. But her micro expressions betrayed her again. He had to look away and pursed his lips.

Why had he promised never to lie again? There it was, written plainly across her watering eyes, that oh so very secretly, she just wanted him to say yes, to say that he'd been manipulated and coerced.

But he hadn't been. He weighed it front, down and side-ways in his head. He could just tell her his head had been tinkered with..Garrett was dead, he couldn't tell on him.

But no. It wasn't right. He had made her a promise and if his life was ever going to hold meaning again, he would live to keep it.

“I wish I could say that's what happened,” he said truthfully and looked up at her to study her reactions and paused before saying, “but I swore to never lie to you.”

Skye took it as expected. She held his gaze at first, then clenched her jaw almost imperceptibly and finally looked away, down, hit. She had wanted him to say something else.

As horrible it was to see her broken acceptance of what she heard instead, the fact that she had wanted him so badly to not be responsible for his actions gave him just the tiniest bit of hope. If she wanted to be able to believe in him so badly, maybe he could prove himself to her eventually. Maybe all wasn't lost.

“No,” he said, in the spirit of full disclosure, “I was never brainwashed. Everything I did, good and bad, I did of my own free will.”

She was looking at him again, features hardening, her lips almost a pout. He wanted to kick himself. Skye said nothing but tilted her head down, which seemed almost like a nod. She was devastated beneath the mask of her face. He knew her well enough to see that. But at least he was being truthful. That had to count for something, right?

“Do you believe I'm telling you the truth?” He asked, wanting to know if at least that had gotten through to her.

She nodded for real this time, slowly, “I just don't know why. I don't know what you hope to achieve by-”

“I don't hope for me,” he cut her off, “I hope for you.”

She didn't know what to make of this so he went on..it was time to bring out the aces from his sleeve, when his stupid promise hadn't reaped any fruits yet.

“I know something,” he said keenly, “and I want you to believe me when I say it.”

Skye just looked at him in reply but did not turn to leave. So if she didn't leave, she would probably hear him out. He got up to walk as close to her as the see-through laser grid between them allowed.

“Your father is alive, he's looking for you” he said and Skye doubted every word, “and someday, if you let me, I'll take you to him.”

“We're done here,” she said and now she turned to leave. He let her go. She would have to come to terms with this on her own.

 

2

 

The second time was later, much later. Through everything that happened; him escaping captivity, dealing with his family, arranging to keep his promise and delivering her to her father (by kidnapping, true, but Skye was stubborn and he was just doing what he said he would). Also through her putting three bullets in his side (which had put a damper on things) and the rather reluctant reunion on her part, and then through the months of gaining back if not sympathy, then at least an ounce of trust, he had not regretted once that he never lied to her. And he didn't. He never lied. And he never felt like he would rather...only sometimes he wished he was a little less stubborn about sticking to his vow always.

 

They were somehow the last in the conference room after debrief and somehow she didn't go out of her way to make a run for it, so he tried to engage her in some way.

“Skye,” he said and tried to think of something to say, “how...are you?”

It was not his best hour and she looked at him like maybe he'd lost his mind.

“Are you kidding me, Ward?”

“No, I just...,” this wasn't good at all, “I just want to talk to you. I'm doing the best that I can here.”

“Yeah, you are, like a perfect boy scout,” she mocked, “and why is that exactly? What do you expect to get out of this...being Coulson's lap dog fetching his slippers as often as you possibly can?”

“Nothing, I-”

“Bullshit, Ward,” she cut him off and took a step forward, her eyebrows nearly meeting in her frown, “you have an angle, you always have an angle. Tell me the truth, what's your play here?”

Ah, there it was. Omissions would no longer work then. When she asked him for the truth, he was always gonna give her the truth.

“I guess I want you to forgive me,” he admitted and held her gaze for as long as he could before looking down.

“I thought you wouldn't ask my forgiveness,” Skye spat.

“Yes, I wouldn't, because I know I have no right,” he said and then, “although you did shoot and nearly kill me, so we should take that into consideration when we weigh wrongs done, but even so, I'm trying to _earn_ forgiveness, if I can. I figure that if I just do enough good-”  
“You mean if I see you doing enough good,” Skye interjected but the amount of venom in her voice had severely decreased.

“Fair enough,” he said and pouted slightly because that too, he would have rather not admitted, “but either way. Maybe I can tip the scales.”

“I'm not some Karma machine,” Skye said, “I don't carry a little book around with Grant Ward's good and bad deeds and once you're in the blacks, it'll suddenly erase my memories.”

“Well, I don't know what else I can do,” he admitted, his arms going up in a shrug and his voice coming out in a key that wasn't befitting a 32 year old expertly trained _superspy_ , “I've been jumping through hoops here for the last month and it hasn't gone unnoticed, either. Fitz has forgiven me. And the last time Jemma patched me up, she didn't even bore her fingers into my wounds before stitching them. Even Coulson said I'll get out of the dog house and into an actual room without lasers two strides from the bed. They've all managed to trust that I've changed so how come you can't?”

Skye laughed, angrily, incredulous and took half a step toward him, confrontational. Could he still take it back? Could he just go back to claiming that he was here out of the good in his heart? Could he somehow make her unconfirmed in her very likely (and very correct) assumption that he had been throwing his self-respect and dignity way over board to somehow, by any means necessary, get back into her good graces? Like a spineless loser?

“Because it was different with us,” she nearly yelled and looked like she wanted to jump into his face and scratch his eyeballs out, “Fitz didn't have a fat fucking crush on you, Jemma didn't spend her time wondering if you two could ever make it work with you being a robot and all and Coulson certainly did not one day find himself with the man he thought he'd maybe loved pointing a gun on him, trying to help super Nazis take over the world.”

She breathed hard after this and the plane was shaking just a little bit with her inhuman super powers she was just learning to fully control. But Ward didn't care. She'd said she'd loved him (once and maybe but still) and so he smiled, beside himself.

“What is there to smile about?” She challenged him and actually hit him in the chest with her two tiny fists, “what does it say about me that I didn't make you? That I fell for you and you turned out to be a big fat fucking traitor? That's what's different between me and the others. They didn't feel that way about you. You made me look like an idiot, like a love-crazed teen blinded by her emotions not like a capable agent. I'll never forget that!”

And with that, and a huff of growling frustration, she left him to his own devices. Those had been harsh words indeed but not at all disheartening. If he could still make her react like this, there was still hope. It would be a ways away, but it wasn't impossible.

 

3

 

The fourth time was just a very small instance with very annoying consequences.

 

One day, Ward got out of the shower feeling rejuvenated and altogether pretty comfortable in his skin. After months back on the team, life had started to feel almost normal. He was trusted more, occasionally people even went so far as to joke and laugh with him and Skye was actually coming around. Bit by bit and slowly but undeniably. He guessed the bullet he caught for her in one especially grimy situation had helped with the fact and so he was rather pleased. And he liked being the good guy for real. It felt right to be loyal to people for love, not hate and somehow, for the first time, he felt he was on the right track with his life. Like the past was fading more and more each day along with the scars these dark days had inflicted on him. He towel dried his hair and when he was done, wrapped it around his hips and decided against putting on his nasty mission clothes just for the walk back to his compartment on the bus. He figured he wouldn't encounter anyone on the short walk back there.

 

He was wrong. Still dripping, he almost crashed into Skye and he was smugly cheery to catch her giving him a once over that left her a little bit flustered and her cheeks a little bit redder. She caught herself though and quickly.

“So it _was_ you in the shower,” she said, with a devilish glint in her eye.

“Yeah,” he said, puzzled at her elation about this.

“And you who sang _I Knew You Were Trouble_ from the top of his lungs,” she grinned like it was her birthday.

“No,” he said. _Oh please, God, no_.

“Ward,” she warned and he deliberated if he should get a parachute or not when he jumped out of the plane.

“Fine, yes,” he said and cursed his big mouth, “yes, that was also me.”

Skye laughed wholeheartedly, for the first time since it all went to shit. Around him at least.

”Be right back,” she said and turned on the spot, “I gotta go tell everyone.”

“Skye,” he called after her, a warning with the hint of a plea.

“Penance, Ward,” she said over her shoulder and then broke into a run.

Suffice it to say he never heard the end of that.

 

4

 

The fifth time was about three months later. Between missions and a couple of nearly averted apocalypses, Skye was still the focal point of his life, They'd somehow grown back together. She still had her moments of doubt about him, and reservations but these moments had gotten less and less and further apart. More than that, during the past month there'd been many moments where it felt like the old days, when they were barely concealing blatant flirting with sassy banter and among those moments, some very poignant and very sexually charged exchanges that kept him up at night and bothered in the mornings. If he'd ever had hope for this, now it felt founded in reality.

 

He walked by her room casually, just to drop in, and found her making some inanimate objects in her room in the Playground soar and float around.

“Impressive,” he noted, standing in her doorway.

“Thank you,” she said and smiled, “How's the leg?”

She referred to a deep cut he'd gotten some three missions ago that had been bothering him a little longer than usual.

“Better,” he said, moved into the room and went to sit next to her on the bed, “what are you up to?”

“Nothing much,” she said and then tilted her head at him, “you have something there.”

With no hesitation, he reached for his neck where she picked a (fussel) from his skin and he shuddered involuntarily.

“Oh my God,” she exclaimed.

“What?” He was instantly on alert, worried, ready to fight whatever had rattled her.

“I forgot you were ticklish!”

This couldn't be good. “Am not,” he said.

“Oh yeah, you are,” she grinned, “tell me where!”

“No chance in hell,” he said and moved slightly away from her.

“Tell me,” she insisted, “and tell me where it's worst!”

“No, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not really _really_ ticklish anyway,” he knew it was pointless to try and stop her but he tried anyway.

“Ward, remember what you promised me about lying?”

How? How did she keep playing this card on him? And why had he made it a lifelong promise back then?! Couldn't he have said “I'll always tell you the truth for as long as it takes until you smile at me again”? He waited, hoping that she would let him off the hook but she didn't. So he accepted his fate reluctantly.

 

“My neck is pretty bad,” he muttered through gritted teeth, not liking this one bit, “my feet too, it's worst underneath my navel...and you will never disclose this to anyone.”

“Oh, I don't need anybody else to know this,” she smirked and faster than he'd anticipated, she was in turn fumbling at his neck and at his stomach, tickling him and rendering him completely useless.

 

He screamed and kicked but she managed to get on top of him, laughing manically. He begged her to stop but she was relentless, not ceasing the constant attack, even when she seemed to forget to breathe in the process.

“Skye, stop,” he said louder this time and tried to get a grip on her hands to pin them down but she was too nimble and too small and too fast for him and he nearly peed himself, “stop or I swear, I'll make you!”

“I'd like to see you try,” Skye laughed and she shouldn't have done that. He was still bigger than her – and stronger and although it took him longer than he was proud of, eventually, he had her trapped underneath his body, one hand pushed against the mattress over her head , the other squished between their torsos.

She tried to wiggle away and when that failed, locked her legs around his hips but then the shift in their positions caused that certain kind of friction that could make any man hard in an instant.

 

She hadn't missed it and paused, looking up at him wide eyed. His mind was instantly blank.

It could've been days or seconds that they stared at each other, a current sizzling through the room, he got totally lost in it, but eventually it ended with Skye lifting her head and crushing her lips against his in reckless abandon. He responded in kind, not taking a second, just taking the moment. Like a dying man in the desert.

 

After that, there was no stopping them. Not _after_. At first Skye had back-pedalled a bit, asking for some time to process but soon enough she found that she couldn't stay away from him, and finally accepting, she let herself go and Ward couldn't believe it. He was so happy, he cried for the first time since he was a boy.

 

5

 

The fifth time was when they were getting ready for her 28th birthday party. It would just be the team and them, on assignment in the Swiss Alps, but Skye was looking forward to it none the less. She'd been giddy the whole day, wondering if she was going to get gifts and if yes, what everyone had gotten her. When she was not so giddy, she worried about being so so very old and Ward just reminded her time and time again that he was seven years her senior and that if she was the crypt keeper what was he?

 

Their relationship had started to feel deliciously normal some time in their first year and had settled into a satisfying and reassuring day to day. By now, Ward knew Skye trusted him. But still, he kept his promise and never lied to her. Not when she asked about what he preferred for take out, not when she asked what he thought about her latest TV obsession. But the night she turned 28, she twirled proudly in her newest acquisition, a backless dress in a peachy color that just didn't sit right with him and he didn't know what to do.

“So?” She asked, coming out of the twirl with a bit of vertigo so she had to steady herself by holding on to his elbow, “what do you think?”

“It's nice,” he said and smiled. He felt the insincerity weighing heavily on the expression. He was not used to lying to her anymore, to lying frequently in general. He was so rusty.

Skye figured him out instantly.

“What?” Her eyes were wide and her mouth open in sincere appalled shock.

“It's..uh,” he squirmed, “it's a dress, Skye, does it really matter what I think? As long as you're comfortable, I'm fine.”

“Oh no, mister, you're absolutely not getting off that easy,” she said, “what the hell is wrong with this dress?”

Her eyes said to lie but he had sworn, he had sworn for better or for worse. So he closed his eyes and came out and said it.

“Itkindamakesyoulookorange,” he said, really fast, hoping she hadn't heard but she had and her immediate reply was to launch a pillow at his head.

“How dare you?” She said and boxed him in the shoulder. He winched because he'd just been shot through there by some mad scientist during their last case. She didn't even try to a apologize.

 

“I'm not saying you look bad,” he said, “you're beautiful, I love you, I do, it's just the color, it makes you look a little orange, I'm sorry please don't shoot me...again.”

“Woah, there,” she warned, “wrong day, wrong time to bring that up. Plus you just called me an Oompa Loompa, no one could fault me for shooting you for that.”

“When in this conversation have I uttered the words 'You look like an Oompa Loompa',” he protested and held up his hands in defense.

“Yeah, but I bet you think I look like someone from the Jersey Shore, right?” She hit him again.

“ _You are not orange_ ,” he repeated with strain, “It's just your skin and the color of the dress that kinda clash, Skye.”

 

“Great, so now I'll have to change and we're already late,” another punch on the arm, “this is all your fault!”

“Would you stop hitting me?” He said and was about to go off about her not respecting his injuries and healing process but then she had taken the dress off in one swift movement and it was a backless dress which meant no bra and then he'd forgotten what he was supposed to be mad at her for.

“Oh think again, my friend,” she said when she caught him staring at her, “You are sleeping on the couch tonight.”

But she had that glint in her eye and had just licked her lips which was pretty much her tell and also she was not moving away from him when he closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her. He was pretty sure that he wouldn't be sleeping on the couch. He was also pretty sure he wouldn't be sleeping much at all.

“At least let me atone for my sins,” he mock-begged her and then kissed her so passionately the upper button of his shirt popped open.

They arrived at the bar exactly 45 minutes after the others and blamed the snowy roads. Their hotel was across the street.

 

6

 

The one time he least regretted his vow to always be truthful with Skye was around a year later.

Grant Ward had big plans for the future, expressly for the weekend and Skye had been content just letting him plan in peace and hadn't bothered about pestering him for details. She was fine with the promised couple's getaway to somewhere nice and waited patiently until he was ready to fill her in on the gist.

 

But then the world was kinda sorta maybe gonna end and their plans went down the drain. It was an hour after they had reported back to the Playground when Ward kicked a chair out of frustration and Skye dragged him out into the hallway by his sleeve.

“Get it together, man,” she scolded him, not entirely playful, “what is wrong with you? We have a mission. This is important, we can have the stupid trip some other time.”

“Hey, it's not a stupid trip, okay?” He said, defensively and felt she was treating him rather poorly and definitely unfairly. She had no idea how hard and _terrifying_ that weekend had been to plan.

 

“Geez, what are you so worked up about?” Skye asked him and shook her head, her original semi-amused expression slowly getting replaced by true worry, “look if you bought some non-refundable plane tickets, I'm sure we can work something out, I'm sure we could borrow a quinjet? If we don't die tomorrow we can just go next week. Wherever it is you wanted to take me.”

“No, you don't understand Skye,” he said, fuming, “it's not exactly a commercial location. It's all just ruined, the whole thing, and I can't properly focus on this mission and I hate it. I was looking forward to this and something is always happening. Why can't we catch a break?”

 

“Okay, this does not sound like you at all,” she said and took a step back to look at him, like she was weighing the possibilities of him having gone crazy since breakfast, “you have to tell me what was so special about it.”

“No,” his immediate refusal came like a gunshot and hit her about as surprisingly.

“Excuse me?”

“No, this time I'm not telling you,” he remained.

“Grant,” she warned him and her face turned to stone. Adamant, unflinching stone; “Tell me right now.”

“No,” he said, hoping that three times was the charm. But with Skye, no such luck.

 

“You made me a promise once,” she said, pulling the trump card she usually forgot about these days, “You said you would always tell me the truth as long as you lived, so tell me!”

“Not this time,” he repeated, “just trust me, okay, please. Can't you just trust me?”

 

Now it was her turn to say 'no' and that hurt somewhere very deep inside him in a very uncomfortable way although he knew she didn't mean it. He pulled her by the elbow into a small conference room.

“Fuck, Skye, how long have we been together now?” He asked her, feeling his cheeks flush.

“Three years,” she said and it sounded almost defiant.

“Exactly, three years to the date this weekend,” he said or rather shouted, still clutching her arm, “and for three years I've woken up next to you every morning not believing my eyes and never knowing how I could be so lucky after all the bad shit I did and I love you so much, I can't even begin to explain and I hate that you are making me tell you because it was supposed to be a surprise, it was supposed to be _the_ surprise and I went to hell and back and begged almost literally on my knees for Lady Sif to take us to Asgard on the weekend and then on some balcony in the land of the stupid Gods of old, I'd have asked you to marry me and now the world is ending and it's all messed up and I didn't want to tell you because now it's not gonna happen!”

 

He had not made a point during that whole speech and now he was all shouted out and he had told her absolutely everything. Skye looked up at him with eyes wider than he'd ever seen.

 

“Shut up,” she said, “Asgard? Really? Oh my God, I always wanted to go there, that's insane! And you talked to Sif, how? When? Was she scary, I bet she was, she's so badass-”

“Uh, Skye,” he muttered, irritated, “I kinda said something else there, too.”

“Yeah?” She said and her breath hitched just that faintly and her eyes twitched just so lightly that he knew she had very much heard him.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice smaller now, “what do you say?”

“Oh well, if we get through this mission alive, I think we should try to get in touch with Sif and make this happen,” she said nonchalantly and shrugged, “I hear Asgard is beautiful this time of year.”

 

“Skye,” he said and felt his heart sink just a little bit, wondering if she was actually evading the question, if she would still say no.

“Yes,” she looked up at him with her eyebrows raised.

“And about the other thing?”

“No, I mean _yes_ ,” she grinned and the moment was endless, “of course I'll marry you, you big idiot.”

 

He burst out laughing, infinitely relieved, and gathered her up into his arms. As his eyes filled with tears, he spun her around a couple of times, kissing whatever part of her he could reach and knew no man, let alone a man like him, ever deserved to be so happy.

“Well, just like that I'm focused on the mission again,” he said into her curls.

“Huh?” She was breathless and crying too.

“We can't get married on a planet that doesn't exist, so let's just get this over with,” he said and put her down to her feet.

“Let's,” Skye said. She looked at him like he was the moon and the stars and he knew that even if everything failed and the world was going end the next day, he would die in peace.

He had everything he'd ever wanted, right in this moment. But he'd be damned if he wasn't going to fight for it until his dying breath.

 

 


End file.
